Countdown: 92 Days Remaining
Sunday, March 21, 2010
11:11 a.m.
Well geez, I must have been busy this quarter. I haven’t even taken the time to post a journal in a month!
Put simply, this quarter has been one gargantuan ball of excitement for me. Not necessarily all positive excitement, but high-octane, obscenely-stress-inducing none-the-less.
I went to the Renaissance Festival for a little bit one day. Had not one, but two delicious bread-bowls (because they screwed up our order ;D oh yeah!) and got dressed up all renaissance whore-like in one of the vendors booths! I promised myself last year that I’d save up and buy myself a fancy reversible steel-boned corset this year, but… I’m getting my own place in summer, so that’s quite a bit more important u_u
I also went to MegaCon with Luke. It was a great adventure, but there could have been more side quests! I kept hearing how MegaCon was SOOO much bigger than Metrocon, but aside from the sheer size of the vendor’s room, I noticed that Megacon had significantly fewer main events, panels, and organization overall. Their guest list was pretty damn impressive, though. I didn’t personally recognize a whole lot of people, but that’s nothing new.
Work is still going really well, too. Niza’s graduating this quarter (yay! Congrats!) but that means we have to get a replacement for her at work (boo!) We got SO MANY applications! @.@ Most were from people I’d never seen or heard of before, which is a general sign that they might do ok in class, but that they don’t do anything special or show any higher-than-average dedication or effort. Which is something Debbie looks for. If you’re recognizable in the office, have an impressive school-wide presence, and meet the standard job criteria, then you have a good shot. Seth ended up getting the position, because Deb knew him, he had a great rep, and his personality fit the job. Plus Deb just finally wanted a good guy worker for a change. So, he’s been getting training from me, Deb, and Cathy so far. It feels so weird to be training someone when I myself feel like I barely know anything at all. That got me thinking, though. I’ve been at this job since October! I’ve been there for half a year already - which makes this my longest job yet, since there’s no chance I’m giving it up any time soon. And THAT made me think about how long it generally takes to get a raise.
That’s where the bummer lies. I asked Niza, who’s been at this job for years, and she said she’s never gotten a raise. This made me epic sad face and wtf all over. I know for a fact that other work studies have been given raises and do make more than me and Niza on an hourly basis, and at least one of said work studies hasn’t been there anywhere near as long as Niza. This same work study also spends most of the time texting, listening to music, and taking breaks. When work IS getting done, it’s generally one of two things - plugging numbers into text fields on a computer and hitting “save”, or putting specific files away in a single area of the office.
Compare this to what Niza does. Niza will do tasks for not just one office, but three (sometimes four). Because of the pay situation, she tends not to willingly work for one office as often as the others (it has it’s own, over-payed, under-worked work-study), but the other two offices, she can do virtually any work that the actual employees can do! AND she’s been there longer than half the staff at this point! So, why Niza only makes what I make (me still being relatively “new”) and this other work-study makes half-a-buck to a buck more than we do each hour, is clearly beyond me.
That rant aside, my next topic is school.
It’s getting pretty ridiculous. From the staggering number of hours I have to put in to each project, to the absurd difficulty I have in getting the classes I need to continue on with my graduation in a timely manner - it’s ridiculous.
Some classes I don’t mind the hours. It’s all pure work, nothing too frustrating. (like spending hours trying to figure out how to properly skin something in Max…) These classes I don’t mind, and even love. These classes this quarter are Low-Poly Modeling (with the lovely Celeste), Programming for the Artist (with a new favorite, Krishna) and Computer Modeling III (with Simeon, who will never cease to be awesome). Three out of four not too shabby.
Now, the big kicker about my classes this quarter is that they’re all either relying on each other for me, or relying on a program that I’m fucking retarded with. In Low-Poly Modeling, the whole thing started with some concepts. I need to give myself a drawing kick-in-the-ass, because I’ve been stuck modeling so damn long my ability to spontaneously draw has pretty much evaporated. So, that was a hurdle. Then I decided, since I’m still in dire need of some one-on-one time with Photoshop, I’d play with it to kick myself in the ass. Well, that took longer than it should have. And texturing also requires Photoshop, so I’m still woefully terrible at that aspect of my projects as well. Then to top the Photoshop hell off, the end of this class is rigging and animation.
Rigging. Oh, rigging. With Ellen. Yes, Ellen. Here’s the funny thing. As soon as we hit rigging in Low Poly Modeling, I learned more from Celeste in less than 4 hours than I comprehensively learned from Ellen ALL FUCKING QUARTER. Is it just me, or DOES THIS SOUND LIKE A PROBLEM? Augh, more on that in a bit.
Programming for the Artist is pretty much a web design class. I kicked serious ass aside from the bits where we had to create web graphics for the sites we worked on, and then had to do mock-ups of our own sites. Me, being Photoshop retarded, couldn’t even think of how to begin to approach that task, so I skipped it altogether, got a zero on an assignment because of it, and jumped right into my own site design, since it required more Photo-failing from me, and therefore a lot more time to even make it to the basic requirements. Luckily, like I said, aside from the Photoshop hang-up, I kicked ass in that class.
Computer Modeling III, for me, directly correlated with Character Rigging. The whole project for 11 weeks is to create a high-poly animal 3D model in an environmental pedestal thing. We did a human skull as a starter project, too, though. Not too big a deal. But, for Character Rigging, there are two projects. First, a biped. No big deal, I have my character model from Computer Modeling II. Sweet action. Second project, however, is a quadruped. I don’t have a quadruped model stashed away just yet, but oh! We’re making an animal in Computer Modeling III! I can use THAT one! Yeah, so these two classes are hinging on the same model, and I’m essentially putting double time on this same project that I can use in both classes. Lo and behold, it’s due tomorrow (both of them) and I still haven’t even completely fixed the damn model. See, something really bad happened to it, and all the nice neat geometry got completely fucked up and turned into little firework mind-fuck explosions of tris instead, so I have to manually repair the whole model, which started out at over 40,000 tris. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, look up some high-poly versus low-poly 3D computer/video game models.)
So, AUUUUUUGHHHHHH!
Then there’s housing (I’ll tie it all up with this). FUCK. HOUSING. I live with amazing people right now, but the whole rules and regulations and inspections and money-grubbing ass-holery from the fuckers in charge is just too damn much. I mean, for fuck’s sake, inspections this time were scheduled during weeks 9 and 10. The finals crunch. The time where no one sleeps, no one eats, no one showers, because all we’re fucking doing is FINALS FINALS FINALS. So of course they want us to stop, play maid, and clean up every little fucking thing so they can come in and tell us we’re slobs and owe them $50 because we burned their eyes with the fact that WE ACTUALLY LIVE HERE AND DON’T JUST DECORATE THE PLACE! So, we failed inspections the first time they came around. We’d all been too busy, and someone had cooked, and there was “clutter” and “garbage” that had to be taken care of. BAH. We cleaned the piss out of the place, I cut myself short on time to do my finals, and got told re-inspections would be Friday. Well, no one showed up Friday, so I texted them. Didn’t get a response until Saturday, when they said “Oh, someone will be by around 1”. Well, 2:30 rolls around, and I text them again, and now it’s “Oh, it’s just getting done tomorrow”. Well, it’s fucking tomorrow, and it’s noon, and again, NO ONE IS SHOWING UP.
THIS BULLSHIT. I AM TIRED OF IT.
So, the countdown is at 92 days. That’s 13 weeks and a day. That’s the planned move-out. That’s when some good shit goes down. That’s when I make myself my first ever home. Do you hear me? I SAY THAT’S WHEN SOME GOOD SHIT GOES DOWN DAMMIT! SO THERE!
11:11 a.m.
Well geez, I must have been busy this quarter. I haven’t even taken the time to post a journal in a month!
Put simply, this quarter has been one gargantuan ball of excitement for me. Not necessarily all positive excitement, but high-octane, obscenely-stress-inducing none-the-less.
I went to the Renaissance Festival for a little bit one day. Had not one, but two delicious bread-bowls (because they screwed up our order ;D oh yeah!) and got dressed up all renaissance whore-like in one of the vendors booths! I promised myself last year that I’d save up and buy myself a fancy reversible steel-boned corset this year, but… I’m getting my own place in summer, so that’s quite a bit more important u_u
I also went to MegaCon with Luke. It was a great adventure, but there could have been more side quests! I kept hearing how MegaCon was SOOO much bigger than Metrocon, but aside from the sheer size of the vendor’s room, I noticed that Megacon had significantly fewer main events, panels, and organization overall. Their guest list was pretty damn impressive, though. I didn’t personally recognize a whole lot of people, but that’s nothing new.
Work is still going really well, too. Niza’s graduating this quarter (yay! Congrats!) but that means we have to get a replacement for her at work (boo!) We got SO MANY applications! @.@ Most were from people I’d never seen or heard of before, which is a general sign that they might do ok in class, but that they don’t do anything special or show any higher-than-average dedication or effort. Which is something Debbie looks for. If you’re recognizable in the office, have an impressive school-wide presence, and meet the standard job criteria, then you have a good shot. Seth ended up getting the position, because Deb knew him, he had a great rep, and his personality fit the job. Plus Deb just finally wanted a good guy worker for a change. So, he’s been getting training from me, Deb, and Cathy so far. It feels so weird to be training someone when I myself feel like I barely know anything at all. That got me thinking, though. I’ve been at this job since October! I’ve been there for half a year already - which makes this my longest job yet, since there’s no chance I’m giving it up any time soon. And THAT made me think about how long it generally takes to get a raise.
That’s where the bummer lies. I asked Niza, who’s been at this job for years, and she said she’s never gotten a raise. This made me epic sad face and wtf all over. I know for a fact that other work studies have been given raises and do make more than me and Niza on an hourly basis, and at least one of said work studies hasn’t been there anywhere near as long as Niza. This same work study also spends most of the time texting, listening to music, and taking breaks. When work IS getting done, it’s generally one of two things - plugging numbers into text fields on a computer and hitting “save”, or putting specific files away in a single area of the office.
Compare this to what Niza does. Niza will do tasks for not just one office, but three (sometimes four). Because of the pay situation, she tends not to willingly work for one office as often as the others (it has it’s own, over-payed, under-worked work-study), but the other two offices, she can do virtually any work that the actual employees can do! AND she’s been there longer than half the staff at this point! So, why Niza only makes what I make (me still being relatively “new”) and this other work-study makes half-a-buck to a buck more than we do each hour, is clearly beyond me.
That rant aside, my next topic is school.
It’s getting pretty ridiculous. From the staggering number of hours I have to put in to each project, to the absurd difficulty I have in getting the classes I need to continue on with my graduation in a timely manner - it’s ridiculous.
Some classes I don’t mind the hours. It’s all pure work, nothing too frustrating. (like spending hours trying to figure out how to properly skin something in Max…) These classes I don’t mind, and even love. These classes this quarter are Low-Poly Modeling (with the lovely Celeste), Programming for the Artist (with a new favorite, Krishna) and Computer Modeling III (with Simeon, who will never cease to be awesome). Three out of four not too shabby.
Now, the big kicker about my classes this quarter is that they’re all either relying on each other for me, or relying on a program that I’m fucking retarded with. In Low-Poly Modeling, the whole thing started with some concepts. I need to give myself a drawing kick-in-the-ass, because I’ve been stuck modeling so damn long my ability to spontaneously draw has pretty much evaporated. So, that was a hurdle. Then I decided, since I’m still in dire need of some one-on-one time with Photoshop, I’d play with it to kick myself in the ass. Well, that took longer than it should have. And texturing also requires Photoshop, so I’m still woefully terrible at that aspect of my projects as well. Then to top the Photoshop hell off, the end of this class is rigging and animation.
Rigging. Oh, rigging. With Ellen. Yes, Ellen. Here’s the funny thing. As soon as we hit rigging in Low Poly Modeling, I learned more from Celeste in less than 4 hours than I comprehensively learned from Ellen ALL FUCKING QUARTER. Is it just me, or DOES THIS SOUND LIKE A PROBLEM? Augh, more on that in a bit.
Programming for the Artist is pretty much a web design class. I kicked serious ass aside from the bits where we had to create web graphics for the sites we worked on, and then had to do mock-ups of our own sites. Me, being Photoshop retarded, couldn’t even think of how to begin to approach that task, so I skipped it altogether, got a zero on an assignment because of it, and jumped right into my own site design, since it required more Photo-failing from me, and therefore a lot more time to even make it to the basic requirements. Luckily, like I said, aside from the Photoshop hang-up, I kicked ass in that class.
Computer Modeling III, for me, directly correlated with Character Rigging. The whole project for 11 weeks is to create a high-poly animal 3D model in an environmental pedestal thing. We did a human skull as a starter project, too, though. Not too big a deal. But, for Character Rigging, there are two projects. First, a biped. No big deal, I have my character model from Computer Modeling II. Sweet action. Second project, however, is a quadruped. I don’t have a quadruped model stashed away just yet, but oh! We’re making an animal in Computer Modeling III! I can use THAT one! Yeah, so these two classes are hinging on the same model, and I’m essentially putting double time on this same project that I can use in both classes. Lo and behold, it’s due tomorrow (both of them) and I still haven’t even completely fixed the damn model. See, something really bad happened to it, and all the nice neat geometry got completely fucked up and turned into little firework mind-fuck explosions of tris instead, so I have to manually repair the whole model, which started out at over 40,000 tris. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, look up some high-poly versus low-poly 3D computer/video game models.)
So, AUUUUUUGHHHHHH!
Then there’s housing (I’ll tie it all up with this). FUCK. HOUSING. I live with amazing people right now, but the whole rules and regulations and inspections and money-grubbing ass-holery from the fuckers in charge is just too damn much. I mean, for fuck’s sake, inspections this time were scheduled during weeks 9 and 10. The finals crunch. The time where no one sleeps, no one eats, no one showers, because all we’re fucking doing is FINALS FINALS FINALS. So of course they want us to stop, play maid, and clean up every little fucking thing so they can come in and tell us we’re slobs and owe them $50 because we burned their eyes with the fact that WE ACTUALLY LIVE HERE AND DON’T JUST DECORATE THE PLACE! So, we failed inspections the first time they came around. We’d all been too busy, and someone had cooked, and there was “clutter” and “garbage” that had to be taken care of. BAH. We cleaned the piss out of the place, I cut myself short on time to do my finals, and got told re-inspections would be Friday. Well, no one showed up Friday, so I texted them. Didn’t get a response until Saturday, when they said “Oh, someone will be by around 1”. Well, 2:30 rolls around, and I text them again, and now it’s “Oh, it’s just getting done tomorrow”. Well, it’s fucking tomorrow, and it’s noon, and again, NO ONE IS SHOWING UP.
THIS BULLSHIT. I AM TIRED OF IT.
So, the countdown is at 92 days. That’s 13 weeks and a day. That’s the planned move-out. That’s when some good shit goes down. That’s when I make myself my first ever home. Do you hear me? I SAY THAT’S WHEN SOME GOOD SHIT GOES DOWN DAMMIT! SO THERE!